VISUALIZATION OF THE DNA REPAIR PROCESS IN MAMMALIAN CELLS TRANSFECTED WITH EGFP-EXPRESSING PLASMID DNA AFTER EXPOSURE TO X-RAYS IN VITRO.

To investigate the repair process of DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation in isolation from various types of cytoplasmic damage, we transfected X-irradiated enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-expressing plasmid DNA into non-irradiated mammalian cells using lipofectamine. The repair kinetics of the irradiated plasmids in the cells were visualized under microscopy as the EGFP fluorescence emitted by transfected cells. Using an agarose gel electrophoresis method, the yields of single- and double-strand breaks of the plasmids were also quantified. As positive control experiments, plasmid DNA with single- or double-strand breaks induced by a nicking or restriction enzyme were also transfected into the cells. The DNA repair rates for X-ray-irradiated plasmids were significantly lower than those of the enzymatically digested positive control samples. These results indicate that X-rays could induce less repairable damage than that induced by enzymes.

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